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Raspberry Pi is amazing. Everything from the size and simplicity of hardware to that of Raspbian. Super moddable, modular, surprisingly performant. As a lot of

by _akhe 2y ago

Raspberry Pi is amazing. Everything from the size and simplicity of hardware to that of Raspbian. Super moddable, modular, surprisingly performant. As a lot of others do, I use one for most of my sites and apps as a home server. 15+ apps, sites, and APIs running on this thing 24/7/365 over WiFi. What would be the benefit of using RISC OS over Raspbian, or even Ubuntu Server? Is it pure nostalgia like running Windows XP on a Pi?

sillywalk 2y ago
> What would be the benefit of using RISC OS over Raspbian, or even Ubuntu Server? Is it pure nostalgia like running Windows XP on a Pi? It's small - apps are hundreds of KB to a few MBs and it's fast/responsive. The question is what do you want to use it for? There are apps for most things, but as it's not Unix or Windows it doesn't have a lot of ports of bigger open source apps.
- _akhe 2y ago
  > The question is what do you want to use it for? Exactly, people replied as if those apps and use cases are actually used today. So it's just nostalgia right?
  - sillywalk 2y ago
    It could also be that it meets its users needs and gets out of the way. Commercial software is still sold for Risc OS. The market is small, I imagine even smaller than the Amiga, but some people still buy it. Is it nostalgia, or just if it aint broke don't fix it.
    - _akhe 2y ago
      > Is it nostalgia, or just if it aint broke don't fix it. I see - yeah I get that, like classic cars, sailboats, SQL, etc.
cess11 2y ago
It's raw, like if you had a Forth system with a GUI that isn't aggressively obtuse. You can touch everything in it with a BASIC dialect, and at least in some variants drop into assembler and run the hardware somewhat directly. This allows e.g. interesting graphics programming, and there's very little that gets in the way of immediately testing ideas.
lproven 2y ago
> simplicity of ... Raspbian You think Raspbian is simple? https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/operating-systems/ https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/operating-systems/ « Raspberry Pi OS with desktop and recommended software Release date: March 15th 2024 System: 32-bit Kernel version: 6.6 Debian version: 12 (bookworm) Size: 2,678MB » https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/raspberry-pi https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/raspberry-pi « Complete SD card images RISC OS Pi 2024-04-28 06:15:00 For Pi Zero & ZeroW & Zero2W, Pi 1 models A(+) & B(+), Pi 2 model B, Pi 3 models A+ & B(+), Pi 4 model B, Pi 400, Compute Module 1 & 3(+) & 4. Version 5.30 Size 155.1 MB » 2.6GB of code, vs 155MB. It's nearly twenty times bigger. 17.25x as big. And yes, I chose the image with "recommended software" because that 155MB RISC OS image is packed with dozens of apps as well.
- _akhe 2y ago
  Apps? So you would use this OS for the amazing consumer experience? And in your mind is that comparable to a Linux distro like Raspbian or Ubuntu in terms of availability of apps? Strange way to gauge simplicity too "this screen has 10x less pixels!"
  - lproven 2y ago
    What's better for a tiny underpowered computer with not much RAM... * A tiny simple OS with a modest selection of really good apps? * Or a huge slow complicated OS with lots and lots of indifferent-quality apps?
    - _akhe 2y ago
      The way you're talking (Linux is a "slow complicated OS") means you're likely some dark wizard in a tower somewhere inventing either the apocalypse or the next great consumer experience. For that reason I thank you for your likely many contributions to obscure open source projects and gosh speed on your endeavors.
      - lproven 2y ago

by _akhe 2y ago

sillywalk 2y ago

> What would be the benefit of using RISC OS over Raspbian, or even Ubuntu Server? Is it pure nostalgia like running Windows XP on a Pi? It's small - apps are hundreds of KB to a few MBs and it's fast/responsive. The question is what do you want to use it for? There are apps for most things, but as it's not Unix or Windows it doesn't have a lot of ports of bigger open source apps.

_akhe 2y ago
> The question is what do you want to use it for? Exactly, people replied as if those apps and use cases are actually used today. So it's just nostalgia right?
- sillywalk 2y ago
  It could also be that it meets its users needs and gets out of the way. Commercial software is still sold for Risc OS. The market is small, I imagine even smaller than the Amiga, but some people still buy it. Is it nostalgia, or just if it aint broke don't fix it.
  - _akhe 2y ago
    > Is it nostalgia, or just if it aint broke don't fix it. I see - yeah I get that, like classic cars, sailboats, SQL, etc.

cess11 2y ago

It's raw, like if you had a Forth system with a GUI that isn't aggressively obtuse. You can touch everything in it with a BASIC dialect, and at least in some variants drop into assembler and run the hardware somewhat directly. This allows e.g. interesting graphics programming, and there's very little that gets in the way of immediately testing ideas.

lproven 2y ago

> simplicity of ... Raspbian You think Raspbian is simple? https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/operating-systems/ https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/operating-systems/ « Raspberry Pi OS with desktop and recommended software Release date: March 15th 2024 System: 32-bit Kernel version: 6.6 Debian version: 12 (bookworm) Size: 2,678MB » https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/raspberry-pi https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/raspberry-pi « Complete SD card images RISC OS Pi 2024-04-28 06:15:00 For Pi Zero & ZeroW & Zero2W, Pi 1 models A(+) & B(+), Pi 2 model B, Pi 3 models A+ & B(+), Pi 4 model B, Pi 400, Compute Module 1 & 3(+) & 4. Version 5.30 Size 155.1 MB » 2.6GB of code, vs 155MB. It's nearly twenty times bigger. 17.25x as big. And yes, I chose the image with "recommended software" because that 155MB RISC OS image is packed with dozens of apps as well.

_akhe 2y ago
Apps? So you would use this OS for the amazing consumer experience? And in your mind is that comparable to a Linux distro like Raspbian or Ubuntu in terms of availability of apps? Strange way to gauge simplicity too "this screen has 10x less pixels!"
- lproven 2y ago
  What's better for a tiny underpowered computer with not much RAM... * A tiny simple OS with a modest selection of really good apps? * Or a huge slow complicated OS with lots and lots of indifferent-quality apps?
  - _akhe 2y ago
    The way you're talking (Linux is a "slow complicated OS") means you're likely some dark wizard in a tower somewhere inventing either the apocalypse or the next great consumer experience. For that reason I thank you for your likely many contributions to obscure open source projects and gosh speed on your endeavors.
    - lproven 2y ago